tag archive: health

After mentioning in my last post an earlier post about losing weight, I figured zero or one of you might be interested in an update.

I’ve lost nearly 50 pounds in the past 6 months. The Weight Watchers plan along with exercise worked for me. I discussed my frustrations with the WW web site in that June post, and I ended up dropping them after my initial three month membership was up. But I stayed with the system, using my own spreadsheet.

Here’s a chart of my “official” Monday weigh-ins:

Exercise has been the key. Mostly walking until late August, when I started jogging. I think running has ratcheted up my metabolism. I was “on plan” every week up until a month ago, but since then have been going well over my weekly points and still losing. I’ve reached the weight I want to be at for my 5′ 8″ frame, so now I have to learn …

I seem to have come down with the running bug. I wonder where I picked it up, and how bad it’s going to get. And is there an effective treatment or cure for the disease? I hope not, because it feels so good.

I was hoping I could keep the problem under control, with three mile jogs in better weather conditions. I’ve been getting by all right with my New Balance 609 “cross-trainer” shoes, for which I paid $54.99 back in early August. This was before I came down with the sickness. The 609s are my standard walking shoe, with this pair being the third generation. But they seem to be doing the job for running, so far, with 80+ miles logged and my body still not rejecting me.

Up until now I hadn’t invested in any paraphernalia specifically for running, although I already own a Polar heart rate monitor that I bought for my weight loss project this year. I’d prefer not to spend a lot of money supporting this …

Where it equals weight. I’m losing some weight and it feels great. More on that below, but first:

Hi, readers! How have you been? You may have noticed I haven’t been especially communicative lately. There’s a lot I might write about free software and culture, but for some reason I hesitate. Maybe I don’t feel confident in what I want to say.

And also I’m keeping busy with other stuff. Enjoying the summer. Last year I made the big switch to Ubuntu right at the start of June and that drove a lot of activity and posts. It also led to some regret at my time allocation. This year I’m coasting along more and taking it easy, enjoying time away from the computer and with the family. No regrets there, although as always I’m itching to do something.

One project I started in May was to do something about my weight. I’m 5 foot 8 inches (minus a few sixteenths of an inch), and for years I’ve hovered around 200 pounds. I weighed …